Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Starring Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield and Lee Cormie
Fun fact: I'm actually beginning to write this review with a good, solid 20 minutes to go in this movie.
Not-so-fun fact: I'm pretty sure that this might be the most by-the-book horror movie I've ever seen. And I've seen something like 150 slasher flicks and 100 ghost movies, so that's saying something.
You know, had I seen this movie back when it was released in 2003, I probably would have really liked it. It's got a lot of forward momentum, it wastes absolutely no time getting going, and it's stylish and slick. In 2015, though...yeah, there's a reason why I'm passing judgment on it before it's already over. Darkness Falls should be in the friggin' dictionary under "ghost thriller," although in some respects that's understandable. It was released at a time when Japan-style ghost movies were all the rage, and flicks featuring vengeful spirits carrying out supernatural justice were as easy to sell then as found footage movies would be a few years down the road. It follows all the beats without exception and without shame, and that's the problem. I've seen this plot done so many other times, and so much BETTER in movies like Ringu, Ju-On, Kaidan, Dark Water...you name it. That, and the characters are about the most milquetoast and occasionally dislikable bunch of rubes I've seen in quite some time. With that out of the way and 10 minutes of running time left to go, let's get to it.
Opening narration drill: Welcome to the town of Darkness Falls, which boasts an especially wicked back story. The tragic tale of Matilda Dixon takes place sometime in the indeterminate past, as the children of the town present their lost tooth to her in exchange for gifts and gold coins. A fire ends that practice, leaving her horribly disfigured and sensitive to light. When two of the town's children go missing, the people of Darkness Falls immediately think that the sensible thing to do is to track Matilda down and lynch her. Only the missing children soon show up in short order. Cue South Park Mr. Derp musical stinger.
Flash forward to the present(ish) day, as socially awkward early teen Kyle Walsh has just lost his last baby tooth. We get some more good exposition as his crush Caitlin Greene enters his room at night, followed by some rather clunky and stilted romantic dialogue. Anyway...skipping ahead, Matilda - now the town's vengeful spirit drawn by the Tooth Fairy ritual - appears to claim Kyle as its next victim, but instead winds up killing Kyle's mother. Kyle is carted off, while Caitlin is left behind to wonder just what the hell happened.
Flash forward (again) 12 years down the road. Caitlin's little brother Michael is now having all sorts of issues falling asleep at night, and showing a lot of the symptoms that Kyle himself showed as a youngster. Take a few guesses as to where we're going from here. It also means that we meet the actors playing the older versions of the characters. For what it's worth, Chaney Kley is actually fairly decent as adult Kyle, managing to get you on his side with his "I'm hurt and scared yet brave" act. But Emma Caulfield is just all kind sof bad as Caitlin, alternating between being totally terrified by everything that's happening to her little bro and being totally okay and all "scientific explanation" with it.
And don't even get me started on the kid playing little bro. From the awful "adorable" speech pattern to his bad fearful facial expressions, he's every reason why I strongly dislike kids in horror movies to the nth degree.
Amazingly, this movie is over already as I type this. The running time is an INCREDIBLY brisk 75 minutes, leaving absolutely no room for bullshit once it establishes everything. There's a BIT of extra drama in the form of childhood friend Larry trying to get into Caitlin's pants, but that repeatedly goes nowhere. Once he's wiped off the screen by the Tooth Fairy, he's never mentioned again anyway. That really is this movie's biggest problem: Everything is so goddamned FAMILIAR that it's maddening, walking territory that we've seen dozens of times before, and done so much BETTER so many times before, that even though the story is competent and the execution of its second half stalk-and-kill sequences are shot well, it all just falls so incredibly flat.
Of course, I should also mention that Darkness Falls is rife with a lot of the conventions that are much derided in the Internet Horror Community (not to be confused with the terroristic Internet Sports Entertainment Community, or ISEC). We get cat scares, "loud noise" stingers aplenty, dick cops, creepy kids...the works. I'm not averse to horror movie cliches, per se. In fact, a lot of the time, they comfort me. But the way that it all unfolds here is just a thoroughly dislikable package. It's kind of like a heaping helping of Adam Sandler's character from Funny People, only not quite as bad.
As previously mentioned, this movie is very short. The final 30 minutes consists of pretty much nothing but Matilda/Tooth Fairy attempting to take out Kyle, Caitlin and Michael as they make their way to the town's lighthouse. There's a reason why I wrote so much of this review while this sequence was going on, because there was no emotional investment whatsoever. If you can tell that this was a bad movie...you're right. And it's not bad in the way that's fun to watch, either. There's no moronic dialogue, horrendous camera work or bizarre plot devices that make for good riffing material with friends; it's all just THERE, a kind of cinematic connect-the-dots exercise that you'll forget 90% of while you're watching it.
* out of ****. I award it that one star because it's at least a slick, well-polished movie. Virtually EVERYTHING story- and horror-wise misses the mark, however. Avoid this like death.
No comments:
Post a Comment